Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show you Yes, you can be
Speaker 1: a citizen scientist this spring and summer. There are things
Speaker 1: to look out for in your own backyards. I am
Speaker 1: talking about special events that are current, that are happening
Speaker 1: now or in a few weeks, that you can keep
Speaker 1: alert to in your backyard. Well, if you live in
Speaker 1: North America, in certain locations, but in general, you can
Speaker 1: be a citizen scientist. That means observing animals and then
Speaker 1: making reports to various research institutions, to things like eye naturalists,
Speaker 1: and this actually really helps researchers. So we are gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about new birds. We're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: incredible broods. We're going to talk about something that was
Speaker 1: discovered by citizen scientists that sounds like it came out
Speaker 1: of the horror game Slash TV show The Last of
Speaker 1: Us Discover This and more as we answer the age
Speaker 1: old question when is it a good time for your
Speaker 1: butt to be a fun guy? Joining me today is
Speaker 1: voice actress, host of the JV Club and a ton
Speaker 1: of other podcasts. Janet Varney welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I wasn't sure if I was
Speaker 2: allowed to laugh when you said can you be a
Speaker 2: fun guy and win? And so last that giggle.
Speaker 1: Laughter is not allowed, not permitted.
Speaker 2: This is a very serious.
Speaker 1: Very serious.
Speaker 2: I'm reaching our contract.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very serious science show. No laughter, no fun,
Speaker 1: everything's really dry. I'm so excited to have you suggested.
Speaker 1: I really liked your topic suggestion, which is talking about
Speaker 1: like the kinds of animals that you can find sort
Speaker 1: of in your own city, in your own backyard. And
Speaker 1: I really love this concept, and I love the way
Speaker 1: in which that people like you and me can engage
Speaker 1: in science. Because I am a science communicator. I'm not
Speaker 1: a scientist. I don't do research, but do I take
Speaker 1: photos of animals and then send them to a naturalist
Speaker 1: or to researchers who I know are looking for these photos.
Speaker 1: I don't send them randomly to people who don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on, but yes I do. And it's really fun,
Speaker 1: it's really exciting. Like once I snapped a photo of
Speaker 1: alligator lizards mating, so I sent it to Greg Pauley.
Speaker 1: He's a herpetologist at the the LA Natural History Museum,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's amazing. It's it's so cool
Speaker 1: to be able to interact with scientists and with science
Speaker 1: and research this way and it's actually really helpful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's totally awesome. We have in our I live
Speaker 2: right near Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and there's like
Speaker 2: a ton of, you know, kind of public facing stuff
Speaker 2: that you can do to get involved in. One of
Speaker 2: the things that we do, not just in Griffith Park
Speaker 2: but in my own neighborhood is Raptor Watch, is you know,
Speaker 2: keeping your eyes on searchin raptors' nests and reporting back.
Speaker 2: I'm gone a lot, so I haven't been able to
Speaker 2: sign up because the last thing I want to do
Speaker 2: is like not show up for something that wonderful and
Speaker 2: important raptor d I don't want to fail rapt duty.
Speaker 2: But but you're right, the feeling of knowing that, like
Speaker 2: you're engaging with your environment and you're even helping us
Speaker 2: better understand our environment and respect it and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff is like the coolest.
Speaker 1: Well, so I have exciting news for you because this
Speaker 1: is something that is actually in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: This is a a new bird just dropped in southern California.
Speaker 2: They dropped a new bird.
Speaker 1: They they released a new bird. Kind of literally, I'll
Speaker 1: ex plane. So there is a small bird called swin
Speaker 1: Hoe's White Eye. It is a little little guy. It's
Speaker 1: like smaller than a playing card. It's got this cute
Speaker 1: little tan belly, this chartreuse head, wings and butt, and
Speaker 1: then this beautiful, vague, glamorous white eyeliner. So it does
Speaker 1: it is. These are cute little guys and they are
Speaker 1: killing it with that eyeliner.
Speaker 2: They really are. This is this is a this is
Speaker 2: a hot look. I love it. These I did not really,
Speaker 2: you know, from just thinking about scale, from looking at
Speaker 2: the photo initially, I did not realize they were that tiny?
Speaker 2: Are they? They look sort of goldfinchy, but not is there? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is that that? Maybe that's what I because we have
Speaker 2: with tons of goldfinches, so hopefully I won't mistake, uh,
Speaker 2: this little guy for a goldfinch and then not not
Speaker 2: appreciate how special it is.
Speaker 1: I mean it's that I think that greeny tinge and
Speaker 1: that white around the eye is yea yeah, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: tried before using white eyeliner. I did it, did not
Speaker 1: work for me.
Speaker 2: Oh me, neither.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: both of our complexions are you know, easily washed out
Speaker 1: by say like hey, it's like I'm already very pale.
Speaker 1: If I add white eye learner to it, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But if our skin was shartruths like this, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it would work.
Speaker 2: I've never wanted your true skin more or at all,
Speaker 2: now I do, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love this little critter.
Speaker 1: They're very, very pretty, and if you are a bird
Speaker 1: watcher or backyard birder, or just general bird appreciator in
Speaker 1: southern California, you may spot them, especially in a tree
Speaker 1: that has flowers or berries. They often like to sip
Speaker 1: nectar or eat berries. Even like hunting bird feeders, if
Speaker 1: you have them, you might catch one of them.
Speaker 2: Sort of, that was my next question.
Speaker 1: Okay, And they don't have that really long beak that
Speaker 1: the hummingbird has, so they can't get quite as deep,
Speaker 1: but they still do have a bit of a beak,
Speaker 1: and it's a little curb so they can get in
Speaker 1: there a little bit. You can kind of It's interesting
Speaker 1: because you can see these nectivorous birds like this one
Speaker 1: that sip nectar, and you can see the beak it's
Speaker 1: like kind of long, a little bit pointy, but many
Speaker 1: stages away from the hummingbird. But you can see that
Speaker 1: like maybe evolutionary path of this bird could have been
Speaker 1: maybe similar to a hummingbird's ancestor, with a shorter beak
Speaker 1: but still zipping nectar.
Speaker 2: Sure, and just because I don't want anyone to worry
Speaker 2: that you have an expert by any means in any
Speaker 2: way on the show, I'm happy to represent the most
Speaker 2: rudimentary of enthusiasts. But so a bird like this, like
Speaker 2: with a hummingbird, they don't don't they have like a
Speaker 2: little tongue that was also involved in the beak. But
Speaker 2: this with this little character, is he or she uh
Speaker 2: sip with like is a tongue in play or is
Speaker 2: it mostly beak action?
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, yes, that tongue is going to help them sip.
Speaker 1: It's not not quite as long in fancy as the hummingbird,
Speaker 1: but that narrow beak a little bit curved and then
Speaker 1: a little bit of tongue action is going to help
Speaker 1: them draw up nectar into their beak. Cool and so,
Speaker 1: but they're unlike hummingbirds, they can also they can diversify,
Speaker 1: so they can eat berries, which you know, can open
Speaker 1: and close their mouth pretty easily and snap up a berry.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, if you have like a lot of
Speaker 1: like flowering lush plants in your area, you may spot
Speaker 1: one of these. But here's the catch. They are not
Speaker 1: really supposed to be in southern California. They are from
Speaker 1: East and Southeast Asia, completely across the world. So, Janet,
Speaker 1: I want you to guess how they might have gotten
Speaker 1: to southern California.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna say, not, Migraine, I'm gonna say brought
Speaker 2: over to ce commercially, perhaps like seeing that there was
Speaker 2: some incentive there. It's harder for me to imagine somehow
Speaker 2: these ending up on like a cargo ship just randomly
Speaker 2: and like building a nest and hanging out there. So
Speaker 2: I guess that's my That will be my guess. That
Speaker 2: is absolutely correct, all right.
Speaker 1: These little guys. The thought it's not exactly known, but
Speaker 1: the leading theory is that they escaped from the pet
Speaker 1: trade in Orange County, California. And so we actually have
Speaker 1: another bird, the Chevron parakeep, that also escaped the pet trade,
Speaker 1: and you can see it all over southern California, but
Speaker 1: this one is much more recent, So this came around
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, and they've been in southern California
Speaker 1: since and six. But recently they're population seems to have
Speaker 1: a big boom. There's been many more reported sightings. It
Speaker 1: seems like they are finding their niche and reproducing quite
Speaker 1: a bit. So there's always like, so they are an
Speaker 1: invasive species, but invasive species can range in terms of
Speaker 1: how bad they are right in terms of like how
Speaker 1: much they impact local flora fauna, how they impact the plants,
Speaker 1: how they impact other birds, other animals, because like they
Speaker 1: can either directly, you know, safe overfeed on berries or
Speaker 1: overfeed on plants and then cause damage to native plants,
Speaker 1: or they can outcompete native birds, other or insects or something.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of factors in terms of
Speaker 1: how they could have an effect, but so far we
Speaker 1: don't actually know if they are having a negative effect
Speaker 1: on the local native plants and animals.
Speaker 2: So they are like a kind of the opposite end
Speaker 2: of the known spectrum at this time than say the
Speaker 2: feral cat in Australia, which I was just reading about
Speaker 2: and feeling very bad for the Bilby's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Bilby's.
Speaker 2: So cute in the side, But boy, oh boy, are
Speaker 2: they cute.
Speaker 1: I judge an animal in terms of their cuteness mostly
Speaker 1: by the nose. The snoop is a very important factor
Speaker 1: in the cuteness.
Speaker 2: I would say, ears and snoop, and this one has
Speaker 2: both very adorable ears, very adorable snoop.
Speaker 1: They did you see the whole thing of like they
Speaker 1: do the Bilby, the Easter Bilby instead of the Easter
Speaker 1: bunny because no, yeah, so rabbits are also invasive, also
Speaker 1: bad for Bilby's and other animals, not because of predation,
Speaker 1: but because they are competing with them, right and so,
Speaker 1: and they're bad for the local vegetation and so there
Speaker 1: they are, just as they're at war with feral cats
Speaker 1: there at war or with feral rabbits, and so sort
Speaker 1: of as a branding thing of like, hey, we don't
Speaker 1: actually want rabbits here, they did the whole like Easter Bilby, get.
Speaker 2: A chant bil so doing that here.
Speaker 1: I'm a love that you can get a chocolate Easter Bilby.
Speaker 1: I don't know how expensive the shipping would be from Australia,
Speaker 1: but you know, probably a lot worth it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so so so far, these little little white eyed birds. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is unknown what impact they have and in fact
Speaker 1: it's unknown how big their population is. There's been more
Speaker 1: reports of sightings. It seems like their population is on
Speaker 1: the rise, but researchers need more data. So that is
Speaker 1: something that people can do from their backyards right or
Speaker 1: on your walk or whatever. If you see one of
Speaker 1: these birds and you can look up pictures of the
Speaker 1: swin Hoe white eye bird, and if you see one
Speaker 1: of these you can snap a photo or make a
Speaker 1: report of where you see it. You can go through
Speaker 1: like a naturalist is the main one. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's an article called on the Brink of
Speaker 1: Explosion identifying the source and potential spread of introduced Zosterops
Speaker 1: white eyes in North America. Also an article in The
Speaker 1: LAist by Jacob Margolis that has more information. But yeah, generally,
Speaker 1: just if you're if you're a bird enthusiast and you
Speaker 1: see one of these guys and you take a photo
Speaker 1: or observed just like where it is where you saw it,
Speaker 1: you can you can actually add a data point to
Speaker 1: the research that is going on about the spread of
Speaker 1: these little guys.
Speaker 2: There it is, I'm looking at it right now. Okay,
Speaker 2: So zaster Ops that's that's it sounds like a disease spelling.
Speaker 2: I know. It's actually his name.
Speaker 1: Is the full scientific name is Zosterops simplex, which which
Speaker 1: make it makes it sound like a.
Speaker 2: Mouth sounds like easily. Yeah it really does. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: really does. Zoster Ops white eyes. I have a really
Speaker 2: bad cases astro ops white eyes.
Speaker 1: No. I know, it's like, oh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be around you. I don't want to catch your z
Speaker 1: aster op white eyes.
Speaker 2: It's interesting too, because when you talk about, yeah, when
Speaker 2: you were talking about the population boom, but also that
Speaker 2: it if that's relative to getting more engagement from the public.
Speaker 2: You know, my first thought was like, gosh, how do
Speaker 2: you I guess you can look at overall the kind
Speaker 2: of data that you're getting in from the public to
Speaker 2: see if there's an increase in general and not just
Speaker 2: about these birds in particular, because that seems like such
Speaker 2: a challenge to go yeah, or people just seeing the
Speaker 2: more for like, what are all the reasons that people
Speaker 2: are a seeing the more and b reporting the more
Speaker 2: and is it truly a population boomers or something else
Speaker 2: going on that we have to isolate and identify.
Speaker 1: You are thinking exactly like a biologist, like a scientist,
Speaker 1: because that is that is one of the issues with
Speaker 1: things like this, because if you get a like if
Speaker 1: you encourage more observations, you're gonna get more observations, and
Speaker 1: then that might make it look like there's a big
Speaker 1: population boom, like people are more aware of it, so
Speaker 1: they're making observations. But there are ways to like kind
Speaker 1: of overcome that, right because you maybe you start the
Speaker 1: clock at the point at which it's like, well, we
Speaker 1: made had this awareness at this point, so then we
Speaker 1: look at the growth from that point onwards. You can
Speaker 1: also do things like, okay, we made this made you know,
Speaker 1: all of sort of California or something south southern California
Speaker 1: reads this newspaper or whatever and has this this thing
Speaker 1: and then so they're all making these observations and then
Speaker 1: seeing if you see like a change right like in
Speaker 1: the observations, like maybe they start more in southern California.
Speaker 1: Do they move you know, to the north, do they
Speaker 1: move to the east? You know? So it's you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: it's really important to separate out like, oh, we just
Speaker 1: have a bunch of new observations. Well is that because
Speaker 1: people are noticing it more sort of like how you know,
Speaker 1: we may suddenly get a bunch of diagnoses for, say,
Speaker 1: like a disease that we've now become more aware of,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, everyone has this now. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: because now we're aware of it. Same thing with this bird.
Speaker 1: I'm so mean to this bird. I keep like comparing
Speaker 1: it to a disease.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's just what's going to happen if you're
Speaker 2: an invasive species. It's not these guys fault. But I
Speaker 2: will say side note. When I tucked this into Duc
Speaker 2: dug O and I looked up Zostrops white I you
Speaker 2: know how it gives you like a suggestion of what
Speaker 2: you might be looking for. It was very eager to
Speaker 2: fill in for me. Zostrops white eyes for sale.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, really.
Speaker 2: Seems telling, right, I mean, it thinks that that must
Speaker 2: be what I came onto a search engine for. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I find that very interesting.
Speaker 1: This is one of the problems with the exotic pet trade.
Speaker 1: I am you know, I am a big fan of
Speaker 1: people keeping pets, and I understand that a lot of
Speaker 1: pets that we can keep are not going to be
Speaker 1: native to the region. In which we live, and that's
Speaker 1: often not a problem, but it can often be a problem,
Speaker 1: especially for a pet that can easily escape, right, Like
Speaker 1: there are types of like snakes, birds, you know, rodents
Speaker 1: like these are pets that can fairly easily escape, and
Speaker 1: especially animals that have a high fecundity can reproduce fairly quickly.
Speaker 1: You know, that can be a big problem. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, right now, it doesn't seem like maybe they're
Speaker 1: a problem, but it's also we don't there just hasn't
Speaker 1: been a lot of research, so there could be problems
Speaker 1: that this adorable little bird causes. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: so c it's so cute. It's not its fault, right,
Speaker 1: Like they are adorable. They did they didn't choose to
Speaker 1: be sold in the pet trade, and you know they're
Speaker 1: just trying to make it work. But yeah, when we
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's funny because like when we
Speaker 1: think of invasive species, we think of something menacing and
Speaker 1: you know, like the pythons in Florida, But really it's
Speaker 1: it can be an adorable little bunny rabbit in Australia
Speaker 1: or an adorable bird. But yeah, so far we don't know,
Speaker 1: because like I think the chevron parakeets are relatively benign
Speaker 1: in southern California. Yeah, so hopefully this bird will be
Speaker 1: benign and it'll just be another cute little bird to see.
Speaker 1: But for instance, in Hawaii, a similar species, a bird
Speaker 1: not exactly this one, but a similar species, has reaped
Speaker 1: tavoc there because it out competes from the native birds,
Speaker 1: and you know, it can cause these these native birds
Speaker 1: to become endangered, and it's you know, can be really bad.
Speaker 2: Well, the smaller the ecosystem and the more like you know,
Speaker 2: island bound or whatever, I'm sure the higher the chances
Speaker 2: are that something kind of severe could happen. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's interesting. I'm like wondering if these guys build their nests,
Speaker 2: you know, in the same kind of safe areas that
Speaker 2: like a goldfinch would, because you also wonder, like could
Speaker 2: a predatory species adapt to I mean, listen, I'm not
Speaker 2: excited about you know, aphex predators eating these little birds
Speaker 2: eggs or eating these little birds. But I also wonder,
Speaker 2: because there are so many predators in southern California, if
Speaker 2: you know, there could be some sort of like accidental
Speaker 2: population control that happens just as those predatory species adapt
Speaker 2: to having the availability of these little qts that I
Speaker 2: don't want anyone to eat, but you know, got to
Speaker 2: keep the system going.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could say, uh, the general rule is
Speaker 1: that the more similar the species behavior is to the
Speaker 1: other native species, then yeah, the predators are just gonna
Speaker 1: be like another thing on the menu. Great if it
Speaker 1: has special adaptations, which I don't. I don't know of
Speaker 1: any special adaptations that this bird has that would be
Speaker 1: particularly effective against snakes and other predators in southern California,
Speaker 1: So I think I think it will just be on
Speaker 1: the menu with the other birds, but maybe not. You know.
Speaker 1: It's another thing is that it is in an environment
Speaker 1: that is very different from its original home in East
Speaker 1: and Southeast Asia, where it's very very lush. This sort
Speaker 1: of kind of semi tropical area California, Southern California is
Speaker 1: a desert. But the reason it's able to thrive here
Speaker 1: is because human beings don't necessarily want to live without
Speaker 1: flowers and cool plants, and so we plant things that
Speaker 1: are not native that have lush flowering fruits and or
Speaker 1: lush flowers and fruits and berries, and so then these
Speaker 1: birds will join us in the suburbs and urban areas
Speaker 1: and basically exploit the setup that we have created, this
Speaker 1: like fake lushness in what is a desert.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I feel like we've I mean, I'm I
Speaker 3: feel good yet nervous about these these little Zostrup simplexes.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled. I got to tell you,
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the picture right underneath, very different kind
Speaker 2: of a look from this other winged creature I'm trying
Speaker 2: to have. I mean, it's beautiful and a little unsetting,
Speaker 2: little creepy. We well, maybe a little creepy.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about this mystery winged creature that
Speaker 1: has Janet unsure how to feel.
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 1: All right, so we are back and Janet, you have
Speaker 1: spotted our next little member of the mystery crew of
Speaker 1: creatures that people should keep an eye out for. And
Speaker 1: what are you looking at here? How would you describe
Speaker 1: this interesting little guy?
Speaker 2: Okay, where do I start? First of all, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I mean, again, a biologists, not a zoologist, not a
Speaker 2: I mean, I just so I'm really trying to get
Speaker 2: creative here. I'm gonna say the first thing that catches
Speaker 2: your eye. About this, aside from this creature's eyes, which
Speaker 2: I'll talk about in just a second, is this really
Speaker 2: beautiful wing that is mostly transparent, but it has it's
Speaker 2: almost like I mean, it's almost like a piece like
Speaker 2: the top part of you know, if you look, I
Speaker 2: think about the a quarter of a butterfly wing. If
Speaker 2: you're sort of thinking about looking straight on at a butterfly,
Speaker 2: you imagine the upper left or the upper right piece
Speaker 2: of that. Imagine that that has more transparency like you
Speaker 2: would maybe imagine from a fly's wing or something. But
Speaker 2: it's very but it is very pretty. So there's some
Speaker 2: white and kind of I mean, is there some kind
Speaker 2: of gold or yellow coloration, looks like there's a little
Speaker 2: orange in there, lots of black, kind of like a
Speaker 2: black lining that creates these little segments of the uh,
Speaker 2: the wing. And then I want what I want you
Speaker 2: to do is then I want you to imagine that
Speaker 2: it's on a tiny catfish. Because it's a body, I
Speaker 2: can't see most of its body. I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: only looking at its sort of head and right past
Speaker 2: its head, but there's something sort of fish like about it.
Speaker 2: And then I want you to go ahead and just
Speaker 2: stick to bright large red orbs on for eyes, and
Speaker 2: then just throw on some little crab claws for uh,
Speaker 2: not claws, but the but the legs, crab legs, not
Speaker 2: their claws, but some little crab legs for it's it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's so so that it can land, get around and
Speaker 2: scuttle around on stuff. That's my that's my best attempt
Speaker 2: to describe this.
Speaker 1: How did I do you have painted a beautiful brain picture?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: This is the way I would describe it is like
Speaker 1: if you took a giant fly and mashed it together
Speaker 1: with like a grasshopper, and then made it look surprised
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely grasshop er. I guess I could have gone
Speaker 2: that route. I decided to go with a more shocking fish.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it is. It is chunky though, it's shiny
Speaker 1: and chunky, so it does have I can totally see
Speaker 1: sort of that crustaceany look to it, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: keep that in mind for later. Stick a little pin
Speaker 1: on that. So this is a cicada.
Speaker 2: A oh, it's just as after all that it's a cicada.
Speaker 1: It is a cicada. It's you probably heard it, but
Speaker 1: have you like seen one up close like this.
Speaker 2: I mean I thought I had. I mean, I feel
Speaker 2: like I've seen cicadas, but I guess I haven't seen
Speaker 2: or do they all have like bright red bead eyes.
Speaker 1: There are different species, but I.
Speaker 2: Think the ones in Okay. I mean, I've had one
Speaker 2: land on me, much to my chagrin, in Arizona, and
Speaker 2: for sure in Arizona. You know, the thing you're going
Speaker 2: to see more than the cicadas is the little crispy
Speaker 2: shells that they leave when they shed their skin, which
Speaker 2: are very fun too petchy off of of yeah, to
Speaker 2: kind of crunch into a dust after you pick them
Speaker 2: up off of off of a nice piece of bark.
Speaker 2: But I did not. I mean, I guess if you
Speaker 2: made me guess, I should have come to Cicada, especially
Speaker 2: when you gave me the grasshopper hint.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, out of context, it's surprising to see cicadas.
Speaker 1: I always like, I hear their sound and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm thinking of some kind of like
Speaker 1: grasshopper like thing or something, and.
Speaker 2: They have a just an evil tiny robot. Yeah, a
Speaker 2: little old tiny robots a metallic sound.
Speaker 1: It does make a very metallic sound shocking. But the
Speaker 1: reason I bring up cicadas is that if you live
Speaker 1: in North America, in the Midwest and southeast United States,
Speaker 1: you are in for a treat that rivals the total
Speaker 1: eclipse that just happened, because there is going to be
Speaker 1: a double brewed emergence this spring, so it is gonna
Speaker 1: be a very special event. So cicadas do emerge every year,
Speaker 1: right like we have this yearly emergence of cicadas. Their
Speaker 1: life cycle is essentially, the females will lay eggs into trees.
Speaker 1: They cut a little slice into the tree, lay their
Speaker 1: eggs there. The eggs hatch into nymphs, little tiny babies.
Speaker 1: They drop down to the ground, burrow under the ground.
Speaker 1: They can go as far as around two feet under
Speaker 1: the ground. And then they stay there for at least
Speaker 1: a year, and then all at once they all come out.
Speaker 1: The males make this incredibly loud buzzing sound to attract
Speaker 1: the females. There's a mad dash to get the mating done,
Speaker 1: to lay the eggs, and then they all die in
Speaker 1: a few weeks. So they but this is the thing
Speaker 1: is life, I know, amazing, right Like, So you spend
Speaker 1: most of your time as a juvenile, just hanging out underground,
Speaker 1: sipping on the sap from tree roots. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: you have like three to six weeks of total madness
Speaker 1: of just trying to mate as fast as you can,
Speaker 1: and then you drop dead. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean listen, you get you get to some underground,
Speaker 2: you get some above ground by being in the trees,
Speaker 2: and you get to drive people crazy with how incredibly
Speaker 2: loud you are. I mean, this is uh, this is
Speaker 2: an insect that was linked as a possible cause of
Speaker 2: I hate to use the term Vana syndrome because I
Speaker 2: think that I know that that's like very hurtful to
Speaker 2: the Cuban people who are like, please don't put the
Speaker 2: name of our city into this thing that you think
Speaker 2: is like a sonic weapon. But you know, it's when
Speaker 2: I've listened to a great podcast about it, actually, which
Speaker 2: I wish I could remember the name of. It's really
Speaker 2: good about the that phenomena, and when they first played
Speaker 2: like that, you know, the whole sort of like misunderstanding
Speaker 2: which was kind of debunked as like no, no, no,
Speaker 2: this isn't actually what this was, and it's not even
Speaker 2: what the people who had this thought it was. It's
Speaker 2: just sort of an Uh, it's just an unfortunate like,
Speaker 2: it's just an unfortunate situation where there happened to be
Speaker 2: a bunch of really loud cicadas. Yeah that they were like,
Speaker 2: could this have anything to do with why we're having
Speaker 2: these symptoms? And it was like, no, it doesn't, and
Speaker 2: the symptoms still happened. But but the first time I
Speaker 2: heard I was like, well that's cicadas. Yeah, like that
Speaker 2: sound that you know, feels like and it's it's an
Speaker 2: assault to your ears, cicada.
Speaker 1: It's a complete sensory experience.
Speaker 2: Bless them.
Speaker 1: Well, how do we know that the cicadas aren't in
Speaker 1: league with the Cuban government to undermine I have nothing?
Speaker 2: So a double brood? So double brood? How did that happen?
Speaker 2: How was there a double set coming?
Speaker 1: So this is really this is very interesting. So there
Speaker 1: are some species that they go through a yearly life cycle.
Speaker 1: There are others and those are called annual cicadia, sick
Speaker 1: annual cicadas. There are other cicadas who are periodical cicadas,
Speaker 1: and they have a life cycle that can range from
Speaker 1: two years to seventeen years. And so that means that
Speaker 1: when the nymphs pop out of the trees burrow underground.
Speaker 1: They can spend up to seventeen years of their life
Speaker 1: just waiting underground, sipping on tree root juices, and then
Speaker 1: at the seventeen year mark, all of them all at
Speaker 1: once emerge and do the crazy mating just orgy fest
Speaker 1: for a few weeks. And the double brood is because
Speaker 1: there is a brood, a thirteen year cyclical sorry, a
Speaker 1: thirteen year periodical cicada brood, and a seventeen year periodical
Speaker 1: cicada brood that have a lined so they are emerging
Speaker 1: at the same time. And this is something that hasn't
Speaker 1: happened for two hundred years. So yeah, because it think
Speaker 1: the just the synchronicity of it, the last time this
Speaker 1: happened was two hundred years ago. The next time this happened,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be another like two hundred years, is gonna
Speaker 1: be in like twenty twenty forty five, so it is.
Speaker 1: It is really incredible. And so there are going to
Speaker 1: be anywhere from like billions to potentially like a trillion
Speaker 1: cicadas just like which seems made up? That does that
Speaker 1: seems like too many that are going to emerge. And
Speaker 1: so if you are near the cicada geddon, which is
Speaker 1: happening in you know, the nor in the Midwest and
Speaker 1: southeast United States, you will start to notice holes popping
Speaker 1: out of the ground. And then you're gonna notice just
Speaker 1: a deafening cock cacophony of cicadas making an incredible sound.
Speaker 1: It is not the end times, uh, you are not.
Speaker 1: You're not about to be raptured. These are cicadas and
Speaker 1: they will made over the course of a few weeks.
Speaker 1: Then they'll die. And yeah, you're gonna find all those
Speaker 1: like crunchy little shells everywhere. It's uh, they look intimidating
Speaker 1: sometimes because they're they're pretty big. They're you know, like
Speaker 1: bigger than my thumb a little bit. But they are
Speaker 1: totally harmless. They don't want to they don't want to
Speaker 1: mess with you. They don't want to bite you. They're
Speaker 1: not like venomous.
Speaker 2: They don't want to have sex with you. Again, they
Speaker 2: do not want to have sex with you.
Speaker 1: Not with you, with uh, with anything vaguely cicada shaped yet.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: So you can celebrate cicada get in by just observing
Speaker 1: all the cicadas, by enjoying the train quality of like
Speaker 1: a billion cicadas all screaming.
Speaker 2: I wonder if there's going to be more ear plug
Speaker 2: purchases than in past years. Really in those areas.
Speaker 1: I'd be interesting to track. My husband is an economist.
Speaker 1: I'm going to suggest that to him as a research topic.
Speaker 1: Like ear plugs and cicadas, is there a connection?
Speaker 2: It just doesn't seem possible, Like, and it's the same
Speaker 2: with crickets. I guess, you know, you just sort of
Speaker 2: we all take for grant. I mean I think I
Speaker 2: did as a kid. I feel like I was a
Speaker 2: fairly curious kid. But you also when you're younger, there
Speaker 2: are some things that you just kind of take it
Speaker 2: face value. And I guess I just I hadn't. I
Speaker 2: didn't spend as much time as maybe I should have
Speaker 2: thinking about the immense noise that comes from this tiny thing.
Speaker 1: Well it's so interesting because well, crickets are you know,
Speaker 1: they can project for sure, but cicadas are particularly loud.
Speaker 1: Cicadas are a little bit different, uh from stridulators like crickets,
Speaker 1: So they do produce sound mechanically, not through like a voice,
Speaker 1: but they actually have these Instead of just rubbing one
Speaker 1: body part against another, they have these what are called timbles.
Speaker 1: They are these like structures, these kind of membraneous structures,
Speaker 1: you know, like like what's it.
Speaker 2: Called like symbol like symbols, Like symbols rhymes with timbles.
Speaker 1: It does rhyme with timbles. But you know, like the
Speaker 1: monkey that slaps the symbols together. These are timbles. So
Speaker 1: they are connected to muscles. They vibrate them really rapidly. Vibration, yeah,
Speaker 1: vibration that is very very rapid. And they also have
Speaker 1: sort of a resonance chamber. Uh and so like basically
Speaker 1: you know how like you can like wiggle a metal
Speaker 1: sheet and make a thunder sound. It's like that, but
Speaker 1: we have a bunch of these little membranes. H if
Speaker 1: you actually like, if you like like this. This is
Speaker 1: what's interesting about cicadas is they kind of have this
Speaker 1: like mechanical look. If you sort of look at this
Speaker 1: timble structure, it looks sort of like a bunch of
Speaker 1: layers of metal together. But these are actually just like
Speaker 1: these sort of thin membranes. They vibrate and then their
Speaker 1: bodies are designed as a resonance chamber. And it's just
Speaker 1: it's such a rapid force that they can actually produce
Speaker 1: from this this thing that's relatively small, they can produce
Speaker 1: a sound that's nearly as loud as like a chainsaw.
Speaker 2: I mean that is nuts and so okay. So the
Speaker 2: little critters that are coming out of the ground that
Speaker 2: they're male and female, that both in the broods that
Speaker 2: are coming out, and the females you are, they're just
Speaker 2: going somewhere too, I mean, are they just kind of
Speaker 2: like in the trees also they are, and they're just
Speaker 2: sort of like, yeah, they're looking whoever's yeah, depends on
Speaker 2: the species.
Speaker 1: Some of them like they're both mobile and they're looking
Speaker 1: for each other, and the males making this sound and
Speaker 1: the female's going for it. But in so species, it's
Speaker 1: like the males stay put and then the females have
Speaker 1: to come to them because the males are lazy, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, well, you have to come over here.
Speaker 2: They're like, baby, I'm exhausted, I'm a listen, I'm in
Speaker 2: a band. If you want to hang out with me,
Speaker 2: you got to come to my band's shows. I'm too busy.
Speaker 2: I'm either rehearsing my band, or I'm performing with my band,
Speaker 2: or I'm traveling with my band. Baby, you want to
Speaker 2: be with me, come to where the band is. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Girl, exactly. We've all been through this. We've all had
Speaker 1: a cicada in our life. But one interesting thing about
Speaker 1: these is that you would think you'd wonder, like, well,
Speaker 1: why why do they need seventeen or thirteen years underground?
Speaker 1: That seems excessive, Like they don't need a lot of
Speaker 1: time to develop.
Speaker 2: A lot of about being a brooding teenager. You never
Speaker 2: come out of your room. You're two, You dug yourself
Speaker 2: two feet underground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, come on, they are a whold They are a
Speaker 1: whole teenager by the time they emerge. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: no wonders.
Speaker 2: They're so horny.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I just it's so good. They don't have internet,
Speaker 1: these cicadas, I know, can you imagine.
Speaker 2: Well, some trees talk to trees, tree roots talk to
Speaker 2: each other. I don't know they can kind they could
Speaker 2: they could be Yeah, a little internet there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, I mean the reason for the law,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still not exactly known why they do this,
Speaker 1: but one the leading theory is that it is a
Speaker 1: way to kind of like create an unpredictability about like
Speaker 1: when they emerged. The reason that they all emerge at
Speaker 1: once is fairly straightforward safety in numbers. If you are
Speaker 1: part of a huge brood, then it is just statistically
Speaker 1: less likely you get eaten, even though a lot of
Speaker 1: you are going to get eaten. But to emerge at
Speaker 1: such a like weird like periodical thing of like every
Speaker 1: thirteen years, every seventeen years. There are other broods that
Speaker 1: do it at different intervals. That is potentially to make
Speaker 1: difficult for predators, parasites and other and like pathogens the
Speaker 1: three piece from adapting to you essentially like if they
Speaker 1: adapt to your life cycle, like you emerge every year,
Speaker 1: maybe a pathogen or a predator or a parasite will
Speaker 1: learn like, hey, they come out every year, and so
Speaker 1: I adapt in order to exploit this yearly emergence. But
Speaker 1: if you're only coming out every thirteen years or seventeen years,
Speaker 1: this is an irregularity and it's a long period of time.
Speaker 1: So you may be going beyond the life cycle of
Speaker 1: a lot of predators, of a lot of things that
Speaker 1: would exploit you, and so it is harder for them
Speaker 1: to specifically adapt strategies against you to either exploit you
Speaker 1: as a parasite or as a predator. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that predators don't eat these. They do. They eat them
Speaker 1: a lot of them. But the point is like having
Speaker 1: like a special adaptation that makes you just a master
Speaker 1: at a cicada munch or cicada parasitizing, or even like
Speaker 1: a virus or a pathogen that could adapt to it,
Speaker 1: like with this like weird interval, like it actually makes
Speaker 1: them kind of a hard target to adapt to, except
Speaker 1: for when they're underground, and there are actually things like
Speaker 1: fungal infections and nematods and things underground that can parasitize
Speaker 1: them while they are in that period, which is really interesting.
Speaker 2: But you know, is that is that kind of the
Speaker 2: only thing that can happen to you when you're down there,
Speaker 2: or can like some sort of burrowing critter find you,
Speaker 2: just stumble across you and go, hey, I'm a off hand.
Speaker 2: I can't think of a single one hole. I don't
Speaker 2: think they.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely yeah no, if they're they can be definitely
Speaker 1: preyed upon underground by burrowing animals. It's just that it
Speaker 1: is not as exploited a region as say the surface, right,
Speaker 1: Like burrowing animals they have to put in work to
Speaker 1: do their tunnels and so you know the excavation, uh
Speaker 1: is you can only excavate so much of the ground,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, they will still be preyed upon, they
Speaker 1: will still have issues underground, but it is safer than
Speaker 1: the surface. And is speaking of eating these guys, uh,
Speaker 1: they are edible for people. We can eat them and
Speaker 1: if you I mean, I have never had a cicada,
Speaker 1: but I have heard that they actually taste fairly good,
Speaker 1: similar to like say seafood, kind of like the kind
Speaker 1: of look like crustaceane.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true, but because I have
Speaker 1: never tried it. But if you live in one of
Speaker 1: these areas where there's going to be this mass emergence,
Speaker 1: check out like your local rest if you're if you're adventurous,
Speaker 1: if this sounds interesting to you, Sometimes like local restaurants
Speaker 1: will start offering cickeda meals, so like essentially collect they
Speaker 1: collect the cicadas, they prepare them, cook them, and you
Speaker 1: can eat them.
Speaker 2: Good source of protein like a cricket, like yeah, absolute
Speaker 2: protein powder and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, their meat, they're bug meat.
Speaker 2: I think you'd have to char that baby pretty black
Speaker 2: for me to I need to get like what I
Speaker 2: taste is the taste of of just like burnt wood
Speaker 2: needs to be sure, I need a grasshopper.
Speaker 1: But Billy, what'd you think? You know what?
Speaker 2: I'm sure? I think it was like a chocolate cover grasshopper.
Speaker 2: So it was one of those things where you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: you've done everything you can to disguise and and and
Speaker 2: sort of you know, nullify whatever bug eating experience you're
Speaker 2: supposed to have, Like I definitely haven't had, like, hey,
Speaker 2: here's a you know, yeah, here's a baked here's a
Speaker 2: baked grasshopper.
Speaker 1: Nothing a grasshopper, here's a here's a a tart with
Speaker 1: grasshoppers all lined up like pecans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I exactly.
Speaker 1: I I'm not much of an insectivore myself. I want
Speaker 1: to be, like, I think it would be cool, and
Speaker 1: I wish I did not have the sort of uh
Speaker 1: like revulsion towards eating insects that I have, like because
Speaker 1: it's just like, well, now there's this whole cuisine that
Speaker 1: I can't have because I have this cultural notion that bugs.
Speaker 1: Bugs is gross. I'm not supposed to eat them. I've
Speaker 1: eaten ants the same, and I think I had a
Speaker 1: cricket once. But yeah, uh, it's just it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to get past that, and I wish I could,
Speaker 1: because hey, you know what, like food's food, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to be yeah, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: so picky, but yeah, let me.
Speaker 2: Ask you this cool question, and please tell me if
Speaker 2: we're getting off topic, because you know, I could tasks
Speaker 2: six hours about almost any subject. But so with something
Speaker 2: like that, how much of that revulsion. You don't have
Speaker 2: to know the answer to this, but I'm interested if
Speaker 2: you have any speculation on it. How much of something
Speaker 2: like that is, like, because you know, for example, when
Speaker 2: you when you find that you're afraid of a certain
Speaker 2: type of creature, and and you know, we you can
Speaker 2: have a conversation about that. Most people sort of understand like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, to have a sort of genetic predisposition towards
Speaker 2: fearing spiders, or towards fearing rats, or towards fearing snakes.
Speaker 2: Like there's reasons for those predispositions to exist, and some
Speaker 2: of them may be happening at the genetic level, like
Speaker 2: at the cellular level. I wonder I'm wondering with you know,
Speaker 2: the sort of revulsion around insects, like had you and
Speaker 2: I been raised in a similar environment except for our parents,
Speaker 2: or our small community or our city or our state
Speaker 2: or whatever embraced eating insects more. Do you think that,
Speaker 2: you know, we would just completely be fine with it.
Speaker 2: Do you think that there would be like some level
Speaker 2: of a version that we couldn't put our finger on? Like,
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: I've actually thought about this a lot? This is a
Speaker 1: great question, Okay. I mean there are absolutely certain versions
Speaker 1: we have that may be innate in terms of like
Speaker 1: like things that are like spider shaped, snake shaped. We
Speaker 1: have sort of this like innate kind of like the reflex,
Speaker 1: which can be overridden by say learning about them or
Speaker 1: culturally overridden people because I mean people keep snakes as pets,
Speaker 1: people keep tarantulas as pets. These kinds of fears can
Speaker 1: be overwritten by new information eating insects. It's hard to
Speaker 1: say whether we have an innate revulsion to insects in
Speaker 1: terms of a food source. My suspicion is that maybe
Speaker 1: for some insects we might things that are pests, right that, like,
Speaker 1: are things that we may see as like unsanitary or
Speaker 1: pests like parasites. Yeah, perhaps there is grubs exactly exactly
Speaker 1: and so we we do have an evolutionary history of
Speaker 1: being insectivorous. And you know, even even with parasites, right,
Speaker 1: like you pick mites and ticks and stuff and fleas
Speaker 1: off of your friend and you eat it. And so
Speaker 1: in terms of what we do know is there are
Speaker 1: a lot of human cultures that exist today where insect
Speaker 1: eating is not taboo, it is not considered gross, and
Speaker 1: people enjoy eating insects, and so it is clearly something
Speaker 1: that answer to your question of like, if we had
Speaker 1: been raised different would we find would we find insects
Speaker 1: gross to eat?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think if we had been
Speaker 1: raised that we eat cicadas, you know, every year in
Speaker 1: a big cicada eating festival, I think we would not
Speaker 1: find that gross.
Speaker 2: Just I agree with you. It's kind of a bummer
Speaker 2: if you look a bumer opportunity exactly.
Speaker 1: This is how I feel. It's like I want to
Speaker 1: if I have children, I want to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to not make them feel grossed out by the
Speaker 1: concept of eating bugs, you know, just in case, like
Speaker 1: you know, the meat industry collapses in the future, and
Speaker 1: you know what, like give them more options. But no,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's also like bugs are kind of pretty,
Speaker 1: and some of them sort of look like candy. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like, if I look at a bug, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that might be kind of fun to eat, But then
Speaker 1: when I think about eating it with all the little
Speaker 1: legs and the segments that, I'm like, no, that seems bad.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. But then part of
Speaker 1: me is like, ah, but I'm curious. Yeah, it's hard
Speaker 1: to override the the revulsion, but I want to. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so there's two options. I think one is
Speaker 1: that we could have an innate aversion to it, but
Speaker 1: one that is overridden by culture, or we do not
Speaker 1: have an innate aversion to it. And so depending on
Speaker 1: your culture, you're even you're either taught in aversion to
Speaker 1: insects or you are not taught it, And I suspect
Speaker 1: it's the latter. I don't think we're born with an
Speaker 1: aversion to eating insects, unless maybe there's a very specific
Speaker 1: kind of like maybe we're we have an aversion to spiders.
Speaker 1: That would make sense, Yeah, but eating any insect I
Speaker 1: don't know, because like something like what is really the
Speaker 1: difference between say, like a shrimp and a cricket in
Speaker 1: terms of like their looks, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: This is a fun story, but like when I was
Speaker 1: a and I think I've told it on the show
Speaker 1: probably like a million times, so sorry for repeating myself.
Speaker 1: But when I was a toddler, I would eat snails
Speaker 1: like a baby, like baby toddler, like crawling around kind
Speaker 1: of in the yard. I would pick up snails and
Speaker 1: eat them. And somehow I as an adult, like I
Speaker 1: am grossed out by snails. But then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like right now I'm living in Northern Italy, like
Speaker 1: escargoes on the menu all the time, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people like it, and it's like I can't eat
Speaker 1: it now because I'm grossed out. But when I was
Speaker 1: a baby, I would eat raw snails out of the garden.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I feel like I really do think
Speaker 1: the the general aversion to all insects, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's innate. I think we learned that maybe there's
Speaker 1: specific insects that may be, you know, like spiders that
Speaker 1: we have.
Speaker 2: So it just and I know you need to move on,
Speaker 2: but just to put a button on this and to
Speaker 2: bring it back around to to like your own backyard
Speaker 2: like one's own backyard. One of the things that's been
Speaker 2: kind of running in the background has we've been talking
Speaker 2: about this for me is like, when I think about
Speaker 2: the insects I see in my own yard, if I
Speaker 2: had to eat one of them, I'm going to take
Speaker 2: snails off the menu, because I feel like I do
Speaker 2: have tons of snails and I'm gonna take I'm gonna
Speaker 2: take like grasshoppers, snails, and crickets off the menu because
Speaker 2: I feel like I've already been given permission to eat those, right.
Speaker 2: I have an idea. I know what I categorically would
Speaker 2: one hundred percent avoid, and I include spiders and I
Speaker 2: and I am afraid of spiders, but I've really come
Speaker 2: a long way. I feel much more friendly with them now. Now.
Speaker 2: When I am gardening and I pull up a rock
Speaker 2: and there's a giant wolf spider that, you know, hunkers
Speaker 2: and sort of proud, just trying not to be seen,
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, buddy, I'm not gonna hurt you. Like
Speaker 2: that's okay, I'm sorry, I interrupted. Whereas like when I
Speaker 2: was younger, I would have squealed and run away and
Speaker 2: not been in the garden. And when I say younger,
Speaker 2: I mean like twenty I mean like twenty five. I
Speaker 2: don't mean like I've gotten much better about that. I've
Speaker 2: gotten much better about ore weavers. Now I can stand
Speaker 2: right next to them as they're building a web and
Speaker 2: look at how crazy and scary they look, and really say, wow,
Speaker 2: you're working so hard on that. And the chances are
Speaker 2: fair that this is gonna get broken before you're even done,
Speaker 2: because someone's gonna walk into it or bird's gonna fly. So,
Speaker 2: but I definitely don't want to eat them. I do
Speaker 2: not want to eat spiders. I've decided that I would
Speaker 2: like some roly pulleys. They can go ahead and roll
Speaker 2: up into a perfect circle, perfect sphere will fry them
Speaker 2: up and then they'll just be like these nice little
Speaker 2: crunchy bits. Yeah, and that feels that feels doable to me.
Speaker 2: Like that feels even more doable to me in some
Speaker 2: cases than like, you know, even just thinking about like
Speaker 2: crickets or snails, like somehow just because it becomes an
Speaker 2: like a shape instead of a creature. Yes, if you
Speaker 2: want to roll yourself up, we could turn them into dippin' dots, like,
Speaker 2: there are options. We have a cereal we have options
Speaker 2: for those tiny little roly pulleys, which are also very cute,
Speaker 2: and I don't mind crawling on me. So I feel
Speaker 2: kind of guilty saying that. But I'm and what I
Speaker 2: know I won't Another thing I know I won't eat
Speaker 2: is I forget what their actual name. They're like Latin
Speaker 2: name or their scientific name is, but what we call
Speaker 2: mustache bugs. I don't need to eat a bug that
Speaker 2: it has all of those legs, like you were saying,
Speaker 2: I mean, those are like it's like eating a little brush.
Speaker 2: It's like eating I mean, I guess. But when I
Speaker 2: when I was growing up, I thought of a millipede
Speaker 2: and a centipede as being these sort.
Speaker 1: Of how centipede is how I know them.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I mean those things they are like. I mean,
Speaker 2: mustache bug makes a lot of sense because they have
Speaker 2: this bushy look, like a walking mustache. And the idea
Speaker 2: of having to get those little hairy legs down is
Speaker 2: just on a puke.
Speaker 1: The mouthfeel on. That can't be good. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: about the roly pully is those are terrestrial isopods. They
Speaker 1: are actually, that's right.
Speaker 2: They are related to the like fossils.
Speaker 1: Yes, they are related to marine isopods. So they are
Speaker 1: kind of like surf and turf. I guess, all in one,
Speaker 1: all in one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel guilty. I'm sorry, Little roly Poly. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Potato bugs are always fine, It's fine. The great thing
Speaker 1: about the pill bugs is you can just take them
Speaker 1: with a glass of water. If you don't like the
Speaker 1: mouthfeel of the crunching, you know, that's me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like ants is kind of cheating. I've eaten ants.
Speaker 1: It's they just taste like eating a little graine of pepper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very spicy.
Speaker 1: They're very spicy. But yeah, I don't like grubs. Grubs
Speaker 1: isn't something I want to eat. That's the scene in
Speaker 1: the Lion King has always grossed me out. My gosh,
Speaker 1: you know it's hard, Like, man, I don't like anything
Speaker 1: that has like a pop to it, like a like
Speaker 1: a gusher sort of thing. So spiders. Spider's definitely not
Speaker 1: I don't you know, like anything where you bite down
Speaker 1: on it and there's like a pop and like a no,
Speaker 1: I don't want.
Speaker 2: To you got me? Yeah, No, you're so right.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's not a situation I want. So it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so what what isn't like that. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think, oh man, because I was gonna say butterfly,
Speaker 1: but I feel like their bodies. No, that wouldn't be good.
Speaker 1: That would not be good. No, I mean I honestly, like, what.
Speaker 2: About like a little beetle, Oh, poor beetle.
Speaker 1: Little beetle, like if it's really small though, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like crunchy bugs are better than squishy Yeah, but
Speaker 1: bugs that pop in your mouth, like that's not like
Speaker 1: I'm even dressed out like I used to have. I
Speaker 1: don't like killing spiders once in a while. It's like
Speaker 1: a kind of a necessity situation, especially like if it's
Speaker 1: a venomous species. It's like I'm sorry, you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta I.
Speaker 2: Know, I'm not. I'm okay killing and I feel I
Speaker 2: feel bad about.
Speaker 1: It, like I don't want to, but I will do it.
Speaker 1: And then but the popping sound that they make, like
Speaker 1: when I hate it, I feel it's like I feel
Speaker 1: guilty and it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: Put in your cicada at earplugs.
Speaker 1: Just like please scream in my ears.
Speaker 2: And wear a boot with a big, like a really
Speaker 2: chunky feel, so that you not your foot is experiencing.
Speaker 1: No, I hate it. It's like it's like popping, is
Speaker 1: is it? But it's it's but it's a spider. It's
Speaker 1: so right. No, it's so with any spider that I
Speaker 1: do not have to like that is not venomous, I
Speaker 1: like leave alone, or like like transfer outside or something.
Speaker 1: Jumping spiders are adorable and I love them, and they
Speaker 1: can stay in the house because they are really cute.
Speaker 2: I've never I don't know what jumping spider you're talking about,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately, the only most recent jumping spider I had
Speaker 2: discussed with anyone is like the Huntsman spider in Australia,
Speaker 2: which sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Oh no, so
Speaker 2: so jumping really big, Yeah, but you're talking about small.
Speaker 1: This is yeah, this is a These are it's not
Speaker 1: just these are not just spiders that jump. There's a
Speaker 1: whole range of species of these, these spiders called jumping spiders,
Speaker 1: and they're tiny and they're cute. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: find a picture for you actually, because this is very important.
Speaker 2: I mean, does it look like just so your average
Speaker 2: little house spider that's kind of just really small and
Speaker 2: doing it doing its own thing.
Speaker 1: Really like they are. They're like to me, they are
Speaker 1: actively cute. Let me see if I can find like
Speaker 1: a good representation of why I find them cute.
Speaker 2: I mean, they are not a good sign that you're
Speaker 2: having to come through multiple photos.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, put one of your best eight feet forward.
Speaker 1: It's uh, here we go. This one's this is a
Speaker 1: good one because he's waving.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, give me a wave. I'll take the wave.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sorry, the scope of my whole day
Speaker 2: feels like it changed.
Speaker 1: But think about that pop it's a terrible thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, well that looks like a tarantula kind
Speaker 2: of kind But they're teen, But those are I don't
Speaker 2: know if I've seen. I mean, I guess if I
Speaker 2: haven't seen, I'm gonna have to look. I mean, I show.
Speaker 1: You just a photo of what it looks like on
Speaker 1: something like so you can see, yeah, what it looks
Speaker 1: like without the close because this is like close up photography.
Speaker 1: And then this is just what it looks like on
Speaker 1: someone's hand.
Speaker 2: All right, let's have a look at.
Speaker 1: This or fingers.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I'm sure I've seen those little guys. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those little guys. Yeah, I don't have a problem with
Speaker 2: those at all. Well, I see those one except yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure. I mean, can they also like dangle down
Speaker 2: on via a web or do they just jump? Like
Speaker 2: do they do you see them floating kind of like
Speaker 2: on your range top. I'll look and be like, what
Speaker 2: are you doing?
Speaker 1: Most of you doing this aren't really so much gonna
Speaker 1: do that, Like most of them just kind of walk around.
Speaker 1: They do produce webs to some extent. Some of them
Speaker 1: are a little bigger. I actually still find the bigger
Speaker 1: ones cute, like.
Speaker 2: Are they eating gnats and stuff?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Are they eating?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, they kind of like cut down there.
Speaker 2: Quite large. You look like a little fairy kind of
Speaker 2: you look like a hairy Harry fairy fairy.
Speaker 1: But he's got like a little mustache, which is actually
Speaker 1: just it's petipalps, the little things on its face.
Speaker 2: Extremely cute. Yeah, I mean again, you're kind of getting
Speaker 2: into like something that yeah, sort of cartoonish looking exactly.
Speaker 2: I like tarantula's and wolf spiders because I like their
Speaker 2: little their fur, because fur it feels less threatening to
Speaker 2: me than the hard what's that called precipice, crep escape?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: I look carapace is I think carapace.
Speaker 2: But I love I don't need to say a hard yeah,
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Those are great words. Even if I can just.
Speaker 2: Get some of the syllables or any of the letters.
Speaker 2: They don't even have to be an order. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't need that shiny. I mean, boy, if ever there
Speaker 2: was a that a creature that looked venomous, it's a
Speaker 2: black widow. I mean, all power to them again, I
Speaker 2: will kill them. But it's very impressive. How macabre and
Speaker 2: bo do they?
Speaker 1: They're very much they they they as as the kids say,
Speaker 1: they read the assignment, they read the assignment. But the
Speaker 1: funny thing about the funny thing now I'm doing the tangent.
Speaker 1: But the funny thing about the hairs. Like liking the
Speaker 1: fuzzy spiders, which I agree with, I think they're cute.
Speaker 1: A lot of these fuzzy spiders have what are called
Speaker 1: irridicating hairs. They are actually irritating hairs that are meant
Speaker 1: to like kind of come out like a lot of tarantulas,
Speaker 1: Like if you pet them, you can actually kind of
Speaker 1: get a rash. Because they are meant to be protective parents.
Speaker 1: It's like yeah, where it's like, don't pet me. Like,
Speaker 1: but some of them you can actually pet because they're
Speaker 1: not they're not gonna hurt you. But a lot of
Speaker 1: tarantulas you pet them and then their hairs like kind
Speaker 1: of come off, and then now you've got a rash
Speaker 1: on your whoops.
Speaker 2: But thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Before before we take a break and move on to
Speaker 1: the next section, UH, if you want to join sort
Speaker 1: of these cicada tracker community, you can go to cicadasafari
Speaker 1: dot org uh and kind of submit the photos or
Speaker 1: observations you make for cicada Gadden twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're calling it cicada gaeddin. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to make that happen. I think they even have like
Speaker 1: an iPhone app. So yeah, cicadasafari dot org and you
Speaker 1: can you too, can join in on the cicada adventure.
Speaker 1: So we are going to take a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna have one more short
Speaker 1: story about citizen sciences discovering something really weird. All right, right,
Speaker 1: so we are back. Citizen science does not just occur
Speaker 1: in the US. It is an international phenomenon. And so
Speaker 1: in UH, in India, in the Western Ghats, there was
Speaker 1: a group of herpetology frog enthusiasts just kind of going
Speaker 1: around making observations, taking photos, and they found a frog
Speaker 1: with a mushroom growing out of it's But.
Speaker 2: Wow, I've I don't know what I would have needed
Speaker 2: to do to get ready for this. I know I
Speaker 2: didn't do it, and I'm not ready for it. And
Speaker 2: I'm looking at a picture and I think I know
Speaker 2: which thing was a reference to the last of us.
Speaker 1: It's this. It's definitely this. Yeah, So, to be a
Speaker 1: little more honest, it's coming out of its rear flank.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can call out it's but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna say it. But and it's like
Speaker 1: a literal tiny I'm not talking about a fungal infection
Speaker 1: like oh, you know athletes. But it's a literal mushroom,
Speaker 1: little mushroom like a little a white stem and a
Speaker 1: white little cap. It's a tiny mushroom growing out of
Speaker 1: this poor, cute, little innocent frog.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, uh, this frog is a h it is
Speaker 1: called I forgot its name. I wrote it down. The
Speaker 1: frog is a rouse golden black rows golden backed frog.
Speaker 1: Actually the full name is like rouse intermediate golden backed frog,
Speaker 1: which is a mouthful I'm just gonna call it a
Speaker 1: little cutie. Uh. So it's it is alive, and so
Speaker 1: it's not like a situation where it's dead and then
Speaker 1: the mushroom's growing out of its dead body. That wouldn't
Speaker 1: be as interesting. No, it's alive and it has this tiny,
Speaker 1: perfect little mushroom growing out of its rump. These hobbyists,
Speaker 1: these these herpetology hobbyists like snapped a picture. They didn't
Speaker 1: capture the frog because they were being respectful. They didn't
Speaker 1: want to like, you know, mess with the environment at all.
Speaker 1: They but they they took a couple of pictures and
Speaker 1: they published their picture in the Journal of Reptiles and
Speaker 1: Amphibians and then frog that picture. Even more nature enthusiasts,
Speaker 1: like my cologists and like mushroom hobbyists like looked at
Speaker 1: this mushroom like trying to identify will what is the mushroom?
Speaker 1: You know, what the frog is? What's the mushroom? The
Speaker 1: most likely candidate that they came up with is the
Speaker 1: bonnet mushroom, which is a Mycena fungus that typically lives
Speaker 1: on rotting wood and not It is not known to
Speaker 1: like be a parasite of frogs. So this is really interesting.
Speaker 2: Wow, so what do we what do we do with this?
Speaker 1: Right? Like, is this like the start of sort of
Speaker 1: a last of Us frog apocalypse? I mean probably not right,
Speaker 1: Like it could just be a fluke somehow. There's this
Speaker 1: thing where sometimes a it's actually in I don't know
Speaker 1: if you'd call it my isis when it comes to fungus,
Speaker 1: But when it comes to say, like like larvae that
Speaker 1: accidentally become parasites, it's called my assis where it's like,
Speaker 1: say you get like a fly larvae in your in
Speaker 1: your gut, and it's like living there. It's not an
Speaker 1: obligate parasite. It doesn't need to be a parasite. But
Speaker 1: then it has found its way inside a yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's making the best out of a bad situation. That
Speaker 1: is what I would guess is going on with this
Speaker 1: this mushroom, like a spore somehow got under this frog's
Speaker 1: skin or inside of this frog. Yeah, and then it
Speaker 1: managed to sprout its way out of the frog. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still it's like extreme. Like. The other option could
Speaker 1: be that there is a type of fungal infection. There's
Speaker 1: that fungus it is actually the fungus that the Last
Speaker 1: of Us game and TV show is based on. It's
Speaker 1: called ophio cordyceps and that does actually yeah, that does
Speaker 1: actually infect insects like ants, grasshopper, spiders and then grows
Speaker 1: out of like it kills them, but then it like
Speaker 1: grows sprouts out of their body.
Speaker 2: One of the all time great reality based yes, like
Speaker 2: versions of Armageddon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I I I appre I very much appreciate
Speaker 1: the the sort of I mean so I did a
Speaker 1: whole You can probably look back in the show's history.
Speaker 1: We did an episode on the Last of Us like
Speaker 1: mostly I really love it. There was one like one
Speaker 1: line where it was like they in the show saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's no treatment for fungus, Like we've got antibiotics, but
Speaker 1: we don't have anything.
Speaker 2: Wait what that's not true. It's not true at all.
Speaker 2: We have anti fungals in any way. Have you heard
Speaker 2: of athletes heard, Yes, we have. Have you heard of yea?
Speaker 1: And even for like brain like fungus, like there are
Speaker 1: there are fungi you know that can infect the brain.
Speaker 1: We have treatments for that too, and it's very books.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but you know you have to have some
Speaker 1: kind of dramatic thing going on, I guess. Anyways, so
Speaker 1: this poor frog, it's got a little mushroom growing on us.
Speaker 1: But actually we don't know.
Speaker 2: Cute frog, it's a cute mushroom. They're both cute.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're working together. We don't know. If this frog
Speaker 1: is upset with this mushroom. Maybe it doesn't even notice it.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're friends. Who knows. Because, like, frogs can be
Speaker 1: infected with fungus, but again, similar to athlete's foot, it's
Speaker 1: not like a whole mushroom, like a whole ass mushroom
Speaker 1: growing out of the ass of the frog. That's not
Speaker 1: like generally how fungal infections work in frogs. It's like
Speaker 1: a fungal infection and a human, you know, you might
Speaker 1: see like a film or something on their skin, but
Speaker 1: it's not going to be like, hey, I'm a mushroom.
Speaker 1: I'm growing out of this frog. So if you find
Speaker 1: if you live in Indian and you live in the
Speaker 1: western guts, and you find a frog with a mushroom
Speaker 1: growing out of its butt, do take a photo. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you live anywhere and you find a mushroom growing.
Speaker 2: Out of a yeah, frog, fair, fair enough.
Speaker 1: Or anywhere out of the frog take a photo, you know,
Speaker 1: because that might be interesting. Uh, who knows. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is a one time deal. Maybe it's a new trend,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a new sort of frog fashion. We'll only
Speaker 1: know if we all join together to try to find
Speaker 1: more mushroom frogs.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's very interesting. It's interesting in the sense that,
Speaker 2: of course, like I mean, you were of course you're
Speaker 2: talking about the idea of you know, something being more
Speaker 2: incidentally parasitic than being you know, intentionally. So but when
Speaker 2: I see something like this, like what does jump into
Speaker 2: my mind is the sort of more I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess it's everything that's that spreads seeds through. But like
Speaker 2: thinking about you know, my dog picking up you know,
Speaker 2: briers or picking up you know, little thistles and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, it is intentionally going into his hair so
Speaker 2: that it can spread to a location that it couldn't
Speaker 2: get to otherwise. So yeah, it's funny because like obviously
Speaker 2: this isn't necessarily that, but it does feel like you could,
Speaker 2: in that way imagine somehow the mushroom.
Speaker 1: Is like I'd like to try, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think, yeah, dispersal is very important for a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of immobile organisms, and so in a way,
Speaker 1: like it's that's what Opeo Cordyceps is doing with the insects.
Speaker 1: So one could imagine that this could adapt in order
Speaker 1: to use the frogs and in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: like an adaptation maybe sort of, you know, it is
Speaker 1: like a random thing that can happen, either a random
Speaker 1: mutation or something that happens, right like maybe originally with
Speaker 1: the opiod Cordyceps, like a curious ant eats it, you know,
Speaker 1: they eat these spores and then this starts to happen,
Speaker 1: and then the the fungus adapts more and more in
Speaker 1: order to exploit this situation. So you know, like even
Speaker 1: if this is an accident, right, it could the course
Speaker 1: of evolution could make it less and less of an accident.
Speaker 1: Where this special is like, actually, I've got a pretty
Speaker 1: sweet deal here growing out of this frog. I got
Speaker 1: I got free transportation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you kidding me? Absolutely? And as far as
Speaker 2: that poor little aunt, listen, we like curiosity. Don't feel
Speaker 2: like you can't be curious, but maybe just don't eat
Speaker 2: something in the wild. You can be curious and learn
Speaker 2: you don't have to learn by eating a fungus you're
Speaker 2: not sure about spores.
Speaker 1: And you just say no. The their program for ants
Speaker 1: did not work. H Nancy reag Ant was not to
Speaker 1: not to write on this issue. So wo before we go,
Speaker 1: we do got to play a little game. It is
Speaker 1: called the guess who squawk and Mystery animal sound game.
Speaker 1: Every week I play a mystery animal sound and you
Speaker 1: the listener, and you the guests, try to guess who
Speaker 1: is making that sound. The hint last week was this,
Speaker 1: this bearded fellow is the bell of the ball.
Speaker 2: WHOA?
Speaker 1: All right? So Janet, whoa?
Speaker 2: What happened at the end?
Speaker 1: It's an same animal, new sound, same animal.
Speaker 2: That was It dropped a sick beat at the end. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: this bearded beauty is the bearded beauty.
Speaker 1: This bearded beard fellow is the bearded fellow. Who's to
Speaker 1: say he's not beautiful? Though?
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's so bearded. The thing that is confusing
Speaker 2: for me is like I'm realizing that I don't know
Speaker 2: if we use the word beard across like a bunch
Speaker 2: of difference fauna, or if it because I feel like
Speaker 2: when I think of beard, I feel like, Okay, well
Speaker 2: I know that the people talk about bearded lizards. I
Speaker 2: know people will talk about, like, you know, bearded primates,
Speaker 2: people talk about, you know, bearded dogs. Have I heard
Speaker 2: a beard describe? Like, who's is there a bird out
Speaker 2: there that's being described as being bearded? I don't know so,
Speaker 2: but probably, I mean, I guess probably, But beard is
Speaker 2: funny to imagine with something with a beak, so I guess.
Speaker 2: So the problem was is that my first inclination when
Speaker 2: I heard that sound was to go monkey, because I
Speaker 2: because I heard bearded And immediately it was like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you know that's a chitterer chirp that could maybe be
Speaker 2: a bird and maybe be a monkey. Again as a
Speaker 2: total a person who has no idea about anything. Um,
Speaker 2: then you hit me with the sounds at the end,
Speaker 2: and now I feel even more confused. That feels like
Speaker 2: again I could not know less about animals. The something
Speaker 2: about the rhythmic nature of that almost felt more like well,
Speaker 2: it felt like it was coming from the chest or
Speaker 2: throat somehow, more like the sort of pulse of like right,
Speaker 2: like it's this kind of explanation of sound more than
Speaker 2: like up in the front of the mouth or the beak,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if that again, I'm basically this
Speaker 2: is not absolutely nothing, but that kind of freaked me
Speaker 2: out because it was so consistent for so long that
Speaker 2: felt like maybe more of a bird sound. So I
Speaker 2: guess what I'm trying to say is I'm completely and
Speaker 2: totally stumped. And it may be none of the things
Speaker 2: I've mentioned and be a totally different creature, and I
Speaker 2: have no idea.
Speaker 1: You for someone who keeps saying like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about animals, you your ability to zero in
Speaker 1: on the right questions is very impressive because you.
Speaker 2: Are right, this is a bird, okay.
Speaker 1: And it is coming from the throat, and you're right
Speaker 1: that this is a bearded bird. This is the bearded
Speaker 1: bell bird, so a bell of the ball.
Speaker 2: There was even more information packed into that clue than
Speaker 2: I realized.
Speaker 1: Yes, the clues, it's all, mister policeman. I've left all
Speaker 1: the clues. I don't remember them. But yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a bird found in South America. It is found in Venezuela, Trinidad,
Speaker 1: Tobago and northern Brazil. It lives in humid forests. They
Speaker 1: are forgiven there.
Speaker 2: You are. Oh my goodness, you really have a beard.
Speaker 1: They really have a beard.
Speaker 2: You look like you hung it or you hung it
Speaker 2: around your neck.
Speaker 1: It is these are it kind of looks like feathers,
Speaker 1: but these are not feathers. These are actually wattles. So
Speaker 1: these are fleshy projections. Wow, coming off of their chin.
Speaker 1: They are Otherwise you know, they're they're nice looking. They
Speaker 1: have sort of like a brown head, a white body,
Speaker 1: and black wings. But it's that beard that is so
Speaker 1: unique about them.
Speaker 2: I have to say, it's clearly wattles. I mean, to me,
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like feathers. You really can see that.
Speaker 2: It has the consistency of like almost like rubber. Like yes,
Speaker 2: if you're tapped against them, they would be like, yeah
Speaker 2: they Why did they need that for?
Speaker 1: That is to track the ladies to be as sexy
Speaker 1: as possible. They're not. You don't find that, you don't
Speaker 1: find that handsome.
Speaker 2: I love it. I'm just so amazed because it's just
Speaker 2: one of those times where you know, look, I know
Speaker 2: we're not supposed to anthropomorphize, and I know that you know,
Speaker 2: we can't relate everything to humanity, but that being said,
Speaker 2: it's just so funny that you know, that's a real
Speaker 2: aesthetic choice, like like like a strap and dude with
Speaker 2: like a big, great lumberjack beard, you know. I mean
Speaker 2: that's a look, and that's a look that you know,
Speaker 2: some people call like the Portland, Oregon look. You know,
Speaker 2: also like being bald and having a big beard. Like
Speaker 2: I have several friends who sort of are rocking that
Speaker 2: look and they wear it well, and I like them
Speaker 2: better with beards. I like my friends who have those beards.
Speaker 2: I like them better with them. And so it's amazing
Speaker 2: to me. Again, no shade to this bird unless it
Speaker 2: wants it, which it does because it's a venezuela so
Speaker 2: it's a lot of green, So some shade as a gift.
Speaker 2: It's just very funny that it's like, oh, I get it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: facial hair looks. Yeah, it's a good look for some people.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that it's like not good to anthropomorphize, but
Speaker 1: I would say it's okay some situations, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to birds aesthetic choice, because a lot of these
Speaker 1: choices are complete, they seem to be pretty subjective and
Speaker 1: with no real like practical purpose, right like does this
Speaker 1: model actually do anything? Well, not necessarily. It could just
Speaker 1: be that the females are like that looks good. I
Speaker 1: like that as is the call. The call is to
Speaker 1: attract the females over and it's very very loud. It's
Speaker 1: one of the loudest bird calls. Uh. And that is
Speaker 1: in order to get females to come over from great distances.
Speaker 1: And then once they get there, he will show off
Speaker 1: his amazing bird, his amazing beard, his plumage and hope
Speaker 1: that she is impressed. H And so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it kind of like to kind of like people.
Speaker 2: And I have to say too, I mean, as part
Speaker 2: of that, like you hear that. And I was thinking
Speaker 2: about that in terms of some of the little froggies
Speaker 2: in Hawaii, for example, like part of being living inside
Speaker 2: kind of a jungle environment, it seems like everybody's trying
Speaker 2: to be louder than everybody else. So it must make
Speaker 2: everyone so loud because there are so many sounds and
Speaker 2: calls happening in a really lush landscape like that that
Speaker 2: no wonder everybody has to play their music a little
Speaker 2: bit louder than everybody else, you know. Also, yes, exactly
Speaker 2: this led me to it also offered me up. There's
Speaker 2: lots of wonderful pictures of the bearded bell bird, but
Speaker 2: it also offered me up the three the three wattled
Speaker 2: bell birds. I don't know if you've seen this. I
Speaker 2: mean that is an amazing, like sort of Fu Manchu mustache. Yes,
Speaker 2: and it is very special. Indeed, so I have two
Speaker 2: new favorite birds there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the bill birds are quite ostentatious. I highly encourage
Speaker 1: you to explore them all. But yeah, their their facial
Speaker 1: business is incredible and in diverse and yeah, absolutely they
Speaker 1: are competing for yes.
Speaker 2: No, this maating moment of what she's sitting nearby going yes, yes,
Speaker 2: more please seek me.
Speaker 1: Uh. Yeah, it's it's amazing. Uh. It is very cute
Speaker 1: and kind of pathetic the way males to suit a
Speaker 1: lens to you across the females. No kidding, so sorry,
Speaker 1: So onto the next mister annimal sound the hint is this, Well,
Speaker 1: I've already given you a hint this episode, so no
Speaker 1: more hints. All right, you got any guesses?
Speaker 2: I mean, based on the hint about the hint, I
Speaker 2: guess I would say it sounds like it could be.
Speaker 2: And God, that's an irritating sense between that and the
Speaker 2: sound of drones in the park when you're just like
Speaker 2: wanting to have a nice walk you don't want to
Speaker 2: hear and the sound of a mosquito in your ear.
Speaker 2: I mean those are there's metallic, Yeah, those metallic, multi
Speaker 2: level metallic person distant buzzes. Unfortunately to me, if you
Speaker 2: wanted to make a horror movie about people going crazy,
Speaker 2: not unlike you know, the sort of like great, you know,
Speaker 2: great and good rabid zombie, you know, sort of like
Speaker 2: oh this is like Raby's it makes it wants to
Speaker 2: spread by blah blah blah. If there's some incentive to
Speaker 2: having a sound that makes people want to hurt each other.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just feel like my temper is so
Speaker 2: much shortened by being in that noise for a length
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 1: I wish you had written bird box because I think
Speaker 1: you could have made it. There you go, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: are absolutely correct, so which means I'm going to bleep
Speaker 1: out just your correct answer so other people can guess.
Speaker 1: But the people do know, they will know that you
Speaker 1: are correct, and so you can you have won the prize,
Speaker 1: which is a thumbs up.
Speaker 2: I'm a painful pleaser. Just give me that. Just give
Speaker 2: me that.
Speaker 1: A A plus with a little thunderful. Well it's scratch
Speaker 1: and sifts you know like a little Oh, you can
Speaker 1: better bundle of grapes or an orange or something. Man,
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Janet, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2: We're Katie. They can find me, I guess mostly on Instagram.
Speaker 2: I'm decent on Instagram. Blow please don't DM me. Find
Speaker 2: me at my website Janetvarney dot com. I never check
Speaker 2: my dms, but on Instagram, at the JV Club, and
Speaker 2: you can listen to my podcast on Maximum fund the
Speaker 2: JV Club. You can also listen to my podcast about
Speaker 2: Avatar the Last Airbender and the Legend of Cora that
Speaker 2: I do for Nickelodeon Paramount, which is called Braving the Elements.
Speaker 2: And if for some reason you're a true crime buff
Speaker 2: in addition to being a fan of all things natural
Speaker 2: and wonderful, you can also find me on Truth and Justice,
Speaker 2: which is a wrongful convictions podcast.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me. This was I would do
Speaker 2: this every day. This is so fun. I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: If Janet's voice sounds familiar and you're an Avatar the
Speaker 1: Last Airbender fan, she is the voice of Cora, and
Speaker 1: I'm you've done other voices as well. It's I have
Speaker 1: this thing that happens when, like, you know, I watched
Speaker 1: a lot of cartoons because I refuse to grow up.
Speaker 1: And if I hear a voice actor or actress and
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do I know you? Like, where do
Speaker 1: I know you from?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Because your voice is I do the same, yeah, where
Speaker 1: it's like your voice is a little different from the
Speaker 1: character your voice because you're you're an actress, you do
Speaker 1: an actual character. Then it's like, man, where do I
Speaker 1: know you from?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That's well. I always like to say Korra is
Speaker 2: just kind of stays at a more consistent, less cartoonish level,
Speaker 2: which is sort of ironic that like the cartoon I'm
Speaker 2: best known for is just the most kind of cool
Speaker 2: version of my voice, and then I'm more of a
Speaker 2: cartoon than she is. So that's kind of how that
Speaker 2: panned out.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's but yeah, the NPR voice, But
Speaker 1: that's right fantasy, Yes, that's right. Well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today. And if you are enjoying
Speaker 1: the podcast and you leave a review. I read all
Speaker 1: of them, every single one. I print them out and
Speaker 1: I just kind of stack them up and then you know,
Speaker 1: I you know, like in the movies, where they put
Speaker 1: a bunch of money and then roll around on it.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I do that with reviews. Podcast reviews
Speaker 1: wonderful and thank you so much for the space cssics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
Speaker 1: just heard, visit the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey,
Speaker 1: guess what where have you listened to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: I don't I don't judge it. I'm not your mother.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what to do. You got to
Speaker 1: make these decisions for yourself. Fly, baby birds, you fly
Speaker 1: on your own. Now it's time. See you next Wednesday.